After a Sunday completely off the bike, I awoke to what could be the best biking morning in weeks.  Low humidity with temperatures around 75 degrees.  Despite some residual fatigue from Saturday’s proceedings, the ride in was effortless. 

At lunch I did a short ride to a bank in Georgetown.  It’s hard to call riding on M Street enjoyable, but the weather made it less than its usual maddening experience.

The muggies began creeping back in on the ride home.  After a mile or so, I forgot about the weather as I came upon two fawns munching grass along the Mount Vernon Trail.  A couple of weeks ago I saw two very young fawns in the same area.  For days afterward only one fawn could be found. I read online about a small deer carcass being eaten by a vulture.  I assumed that one of the fawns was dead. So today’s sighting was uplifting.  One thing that I have a hard time with is the fact that the deer around here are oblivious to people.
 

Click to see two deer under the willow tree on the right

The rest of the ride home was automatic.  Just my mule and me spinning effortlessly along the river.  I am so lucky to have such a great ride home. I wonder if the people who voted against federal funding for bicycling infrastructure have ever biked to work along the Potomac.  Beautiful monuments, airplanes taking off and landing just overhead, sailboats playing bumper cars near Daingerfield Island, the quaint oldness of Old Town Alexandria, the massive faux arches of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, Canada geese in Belle Haven Park, the boardwalk through the swamp grass on Dyke Marsh, the Return of the Jedi weaving through trees to the stone bridge. Probably not. They probably live in Ashburn where a car is synonymous with living in a endless maze of exurban concrete. Or maybe they drive to work on the beltway or I 395.  When I rode above 16 lanes of highway on the beltway near Tysons Corner on Saturday, my brain said, “When will we learn?” 

Well done, Mule

About a mile from home I looked down and saw something that made my day. The odometer on the Mule read 31,000 miles.  Dang.  Well, done Mule.

It started with a breakfast burrito.

Brian (known in the Twitterverse as @sharrowsdc), DC area bike commuter, blogger and Friday Coffee Club (FCC) attendee, wanted a breakfast burrito. He had it in his head that her could find a tasty one in the DC suburbs. So her rode his bike into the wilds of Northern Virginia with mixed results.

Lisa (@ramblingrider), another blogging bike commuter from the FCC, found Brian’s escapade inspiring and proposed that it would be fun to do a ride into deepest Northern Virginia in pursuit of freshly made beer-like beverages.  John (@dirteng), yet another bike/blog/coffee aficianado, sat down and mapped out a century (100-mile) bike ride to three northern Virginia breweries. The route would take us to Whites Ferry Maryland by way of the C&O Canal towpath, across the river on the cable ferry, south to Leesburg VA, back along the W&OD trail and, after meamdering through Falls Church and Alexandria, back to DC on the Mount Vernon Trail.  Along the way he identified three breweries for liquid refreshment, Lost Rhino in Ashburn, Mad Fox in Falls Church, and Port City in Alexandria.

By Friday night we had a team of five riders lined up; John, Lisa, and I would be joined by Kevin (@bicyclebug), yet another bike/blog/FCC triple threat and Crystal (@crysb) who’d be a triple threat if not for the fact that her bike commute takes her far from the FCC’s home base.  Friday night we also had rain. The towpath is unpaved and notorious for becoming a quagmire in certain spots.  We needed a new route.  With help from yet another triple threat named Mary (@gyspybug) who knows the roads of Montgomery County, Maryland by virtue of her randoneuring adventures with her husband Ed (@dailyrandonneur), John mapped out a new route on the roads. 

We agreed to meet at Baked and Wired, a Georgetown coffee shop at 8 on Saturday morning and head out by around 8:20. I decided to ride to the start.

A really healthy breakfast is key.

After a rather disgusting breakfast of Trix, blueberries and orange juice, I rolled away from home. The ride in was pretty darn nice. The MVT was empty but for a bunch of runners taking advantage of the comfortable morning temperatures.  The river was placid and the skies were an interesting mix of clouds and the rays of the rising sun.

Early morning on the Potomac

At Baked and Wired, we were having coffee, tea, and a bite to eat when in come Mary and Ed, who swung by on their tandem at the start of their overnight bike ride to the upper Shenandoah Valley.  It was a great surprise that lifted our spirits. We blew an hour chatting and hanging out.

The starting five! Kevin, John,. Crystal, me and Lisa

A little after 9, they bid us safe travels and we wound our way uphill through Georgetown.  A few miles into the ride in the Palisades neighborhood of DC, we met up with Chris (@bilsko), yet another bike commuter from the coffee club.  Chris was enjoying the morning with his cute-as-a-button daughter Maya.  Chris couldn’t join us for the full ride, but promised to ride out the W&OD to meet up with us for the last couple of beer stops.

Chris and Maya

Off we rode on MacArthur Boulevard. One small hill near the reservoir, gave way to miles of flats. I was feeling oddly strong despite having logged 140 miles from riding to work during the week.  As usual it didn’t occur to me that we had a tailwind. Along the road we saw two deer, one close enough to almost touch from our saddles. We hit the first big hill near Great Falls Park. This one usually gives me trouble, but, thanks to Lisa reminding me to take a hit from my asthma inhaler before the ride, I had no trouble at all going up the windy, long hill.  We continued on Falls Road to Potomac Village where we stopped to regroup and assess our pace. Everyone seemed none the worse for wear so we headed west on River Road.

We show off our Sharrows pins bought from Brian in support of WABA

River Road has a series of challenging hills. Way down and way up.  As we headed west we saw many bicyclists coming our way, speeding down the downs and slogging up the ups.   After a couple of pretty challenging hills we pulled over to regroup. Crystal, who had plans in the early afternoon, had to turn back and we thanked her for her company.  (We need to ride again, Crystal!)

Crystal says goodbye

River Road continued to dish out the hills and we continued to roll along.  We passed an old one-room schoolhouse, a golf course, more mansions that you could shake a bike pump at, a Buddhist temple, a closed country store. The weather seemed to be on our side this day.  Puffy clouds and warm but not oppressive temperatures.  Pretty darn good bicycling weather for August in DC.

John tweets, Kevin reaches the top of the hill

At the end of River Road, we reached a T. A right would mean more miles; a left would take us along a shorter route, but up a difficult hill on Mount Nebo Road.  We went with the Nebo.  The road soon became narrower and a tree canopy formed overhead. We turned right, looked up, and thar she blows, Mt. Nebo Road.  The steep hill had two short flats sections along the way, which was good because without them I’d be lying along the side of the road with the roadkill.

John thinking of IPA

Lisa thinking of Porter

After the hill came miles of flat roads.  River Road began again, but, this time, unpaved.  The good news is that it was dry; the bad news is that there was quite a lot of little water-filled potholes and washboard.  Most of it was avoidable, but I managed to chatter through a couple of teeth rattling stretches.

The dirt road dropped us where the C&O passes Whites Ferry.  We pulled in to a grassy spot and prepared to use the rest room. As we parked out bikes, Ed and Mary showed up coming down Whites Ferry Road from the north.  Another great surprise. Mary bought a bunch of peaches which she shared with the fruit lovers among us.  We chatted so long that we missed the first ferry, but 15 minutes later we were on the next one, chatting up a storm.

Ed, Mary and the Lead Sled roll into Whites Ferry

Kevin riding away from Whites Ferry

The seven of us rode away from the river to US 15, a high-speed, two-lane highway with mercifully big shoulders,  We rode 15 into Leesburg where Ed and Mary headed west on Route 7. We picked up the W&OD and headed east.  From here on out, the ride would be predominantly downhill and into a headwind.

Is that a hematoma in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

We took a break at a trail side quarry and, shortly thereafter, left the trail in Ashburn for Lost Rhino brewery.  This off-trail riding took us into the soulless auto-oriented wasteland of Loudoun County.  Endless empty fields awaiting development. Traffic signals that would not recognize the presence of our bikes. Porsches and pick up trucks, Lost Rhino, take me away!

Lisa, John and Kevin on the W&OD

Lisa thinks this ride rocks, or is it the quarry?

The roads were depressing but the beer and food were worth it. I had a pilsner and a bison dog. I’d tell you what the bison dog tasted like, but I inadvertantly bit into a jalapeno pepper hidden under the other toppings.  This fried my taste buds.  You’ll have to try the bison dog yourself, I’m afraid. The beer was certainly tasty though. We toasted our FCC friend Lauren (@lkono) who tweeted that she rode her bike and had a Guinness in our honor, a Hoppy 25 ride! in her new home of Dublin, Ireland.

Lost Rhino Pilsner, first beer of the day

After retracing our soulless tracks we were back on the W&OD. Where once there were farmers’ fields, now were housing developments and highways.  Sterling, Herndon, Reston.  The headwind kept us honest. The downhill grade kept us in a good mood.

I don’t often drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Lost Rhino root beer.

As we approached the Dulles Toll Road underpass, we spotted a cyclists waving up ahead. It was Chris and his brand new Surly Disk Trucker! (Serious bike envy ensued.) Now we were six.  We rode through Vienna and, after cresting a hill, enjoyed a noticeable downhill stretch  In Falls Church we stopped to buy some lemonade from two enterprising little girls. A few minutes later we were sitting in the Mad Fox brew pub downing another brew and some light snacks.  Delish. Here we stopped to toast Brian for inspiring our adventure.

Chris is man enough for some trailside lemonade.

Lisa at Mad Fox

Back on the trail we rolled into Arlington.  Near Bluemont Park we veered off onto the old Four-Mile Run Trail. After stopping to let Chris fall off his bike somehow, John charted a course through Bailey’s Crossroads.  With me leading, we promptly got lost in a low-ish income neighborhood of garden apartments and 20 year old cars.  Then the clouds opened up. With some help from some rather soggy locals, we made our way to the trail along Holmes Run.  Unfortunately, most of the storm drains empty into Holmes Run so we spent a few miles following the bumpy trail and splashing through gushing water spewing from big pipes and the stream itself.

Creepy tunnel under I395

Twice more I led us astray but the determined efforts of biking beer drinkers would not be denied. We finally found Port City brewery and went inside to partake in refreshment.  As we drank to our health, the skies opened once again. A staff member took our picture and we stepped outside to enjoy our wet saddles and the final ten miles of our journey.

It was getting dark by this point. Since I ride through Old Town almost every day, I led the way to the MVT.  At the base of King Street, I turned south for home and the rest of the crew turned north for DC.  Adios, amigos.

We arrive at Port City

The final five! John, Lisa, me, Kevin and Chris. Cheers!

By the time I reached the Wilson Bridge underpass it was dark. I decided not to stop and put lights on. Instead I rode the abandoned MVT back to the neighborhoods of Mount Vernon.  The street lights and my mental map of every bump in the streets were sufficient to get me home in one piece. About 1/2 mile from home, the skies opened up again. I didn’t care. I’d just ridden 111 miles on The Mule. I don’t think I’d ever ridden this far on a non-recumbent bike.  I was soggy. I was tired. I was chuffed.

So ended the Hoppy 100.  And to think it all started with a breakfast burrito.

For more hoppy fun, check out some more pictures on my Flickr page.

I mentioned recently that while riding to work I fall into a trance. This is generally no problem since I have ridden to work hundreds of times by more or less the same route. Today, instead of leaving from home I put Little Nellie in the trunk of the Millennium Falcon (our Mitisubishi Lancer) and drove it to the dealer. The gas gauge stopped working.  I would make some snarky remark about how the gas gauge on my bike is never a problem except the bike computer on the Mule is messed up.

The dealer is in the heart of Alexandria on top of a big hill.  I dropped the car off and assembled Little Nellie to the amusement of the car dealer’s employees then I rolled down the mile-long hill to Four Mile Run. There I picked up the cleverly named Four Mile Run Trail that took me all the way to the Mount Vernon Trail at the southern end of the Airport.  The ride to work was a short 8 1/2 miles.

Over lunch I rode across Key Bridge to pick up a new mount for the Mule’s bike computer only to notice that it was the wrong mount.  I need to bring the Mule to them so they can see whether the mount will still work. So that’s tomorrow’s business.

For most of the last two years I have been taking a 24-hour non-drowsy antihistamine every day.  Earlier this week I discontinued taking it to see if my body can tolerate the many DC-area allergens.  It became clear this afternoon that my little experiment was not working so I popped a pill and hoped for the best.

The ride home was a drowsy affair. The pill is a bit overwhelmed as are my sinuses.  I hit autopilot about 1 mile into my ride and just started spinning along into a headwind.  I passed the airport just as a small passenger jet (that’s a small jet with passengers not a jet with small passengers) came in for a landing on the auxiliary runway.  The MVT passes just a few feet from the runway so this jet passed about 100 feet over my head. Trance was interrupted!

In just a few seconds I was back on autopilot. Spin, spin, spin,  WTF?  I had ridden another mile and found myself 1/2 mile past the turn off for the Four Mile Run Trail. For a second I couldn’t believe I had done it. I rolled for a few hundred more feet until I realized I needed to turn around. 

The slog up to the dealer was long, made worse by a wrong turn that found climbing up a hill only to cruise back down to get back on course.

I drove home still in a kind of fog.  I may have a sinus infection or something. Benadyl take me away.

People often ask how far I ride to work.  It’s 15 miles give or take a mile because sometimes, like during the warm summer months, I ride closer to 16 miles by taking the scenic route. If it’s raining or cold I cut all corners and pare it down to 14.

When they hear me say this, they usually go “Wow!” that’s so far.  Let’s think about that for a moment. I am essentially sitting on my ass for a little over an hour. Once I get warmed up I go on auto pilot, pretty much like most people do when they drive. I only go about 12 – 13 miles per hour. I would hate to fail a test for performance enhancing drugs. (Is shredded wheat illegal?)

Today I was in my trance, cruising north on the Mount Vernon Trail about 4 miles from home when I cyclists began to pass me and said, “Hello, Rootchopper.”  At least one person in Mount Vernon reads this blog!  Fame is fleeting and so was he. He left me in the dust. I went back into my trance.  As I made my way north from the airport, I was passed by another cyclist. This one was dressed in a white jersey with big red polka dots, the king of the mountains colors from the Tour de France.  He had off white tires. He was going about twice my speed and he buzzed within inches of me so as to avoid a cyclists coming from the opposite direction.  In technical terms, cyclists like this are known as “Assholes” (with or without the quotes).  I learned later in the day that several others had seen him buzz cyclists and smile while doing so. I hope you are reading this blog Mr. Asshole. The only person you are impressing is yourself. Cut the crap or get off the trail.

I feel better now.

Later in the morning, I met Mrs. Rootchopper at her surgeon’s office. Mrs. Rootchopper recently had surgery to remove a growth from her parotid (salivary) gland in her cheek.  After three weeks of review by a passel of pathologists, the surgeon broke the news.  It is cancer, onocytic carcinoma to be more precise. Parotid tumors are rare. Only one percent of them are this particular type. My wife appears to have been sucked into the rare cancer vortex on my side of the family. One of my father’s brothers contracted bile duct cancer. It was fatal. Bile duct cancer is rare. It is not thought to be genetic in nature. A few years after he died, my father contracted bike duct cancer. It was fatal. The odds of this happening are right up there with getting struck by lightning.

The doctor explained that parotid tumors tend not to fall into nice clean classifications so that calling this one malignant while technically correct is probably not very descriptive.  (It is considered malignant because it was wrapped around facial nerves.  Nastier malignancy invade nerves and tissues but this one didn’t.)  The surgeon is confident that he got the entire tumor but she needs to have a PET scan to rule out involvement with her lymph nodes. If so, another surgery is needed. Once that is out of the way, she will begin radiotherapy treatments.

The doctor described the situation pretty succinctly, “It is what it is.”  This is the medical equivalent of the golfing expression, “Play it where it lays.” 

Need less to say, the rest of the day was relatively uneventful.

The ride home was another 16 mile trance. Thankfully, the “Hello Rootchopper” guy passed me again. We both laughed as he called my name and blew by me. Just before I left the trail I came upon a little gift from the National Park Service.  They beefed up the shoulders of a 100-yard stretch of the trail. On days like today, little things mean a lot.

Work was done. Gracias, NPS.

Fall is the time for event rides here in the mid-Atlantic.  I have a few favorites that I keep coming back to so this year I am going for a four peat. Or is that fourpete? 4peat?

I haven’t put down my Visa card on it yet, but I am pretty sure that the kick off will be the Indian Head (Metric) Century on Sunday September 9. I’ve done this before, in the rain no less, and it was solo effort on Little Nellie.  About half way through, a rider on a racing bike who was riding just behind me fell hard. He was taken away in an ambulance. Danger, Will Robinson.  Don’t let that put you off though. I survived unscathed It’s a pretty route and it is only about a 30 minute drive from downtown in Indian Head Maryland.

Next up is the ride I once swore I’d never do again. The Fifty States Ride will be on Saturday September 22. It’s free. It’s fun. It’s social. And it’s a tough 65 miles and it takes all day. The reward, other than the fact that I’ve met a dozen people doing the ride, is the fact that you really get to know all of DC. If “your” DC is Adams Morgan and downtown, this is your chance to see Anacostia, Capitol Hill, Chevy Chase,  and more.  This will be my fifth 50 States Ride.  And Paul, Veronica, Richard, Jeff and I had a blast at the after party last year.

The very next day I will get up before dawn and drive to Berryville Virginia in the northern Shenandoah Valley for the Backroads Century.  This is the prettiest event ride I’ve done.  Fog lifting off farmers’ fields, horse and cows doing their horse and cow thing, respectively. Country roads for miles and miles. Some hills keep things interesting. One of the rest stops had a harpist last year.  And no highway riding at all.  If you haven’t done this one, give up your Sunday morning in bed and get out to Berryville. I plan on riding the metric century but if the 50 States Ride kills my legs I could drop down to the 50 miler.

My last ride (so far anyway) is the Tour du  Port in Baltimore on Sunday September 30. This is similar in concept to the 50 States Ride. The route wanders around Baltimore and its suburbs.  If you time it right, you can climb the Pagoda in Paterson Park and get a great view of the city.  This year’s they added a metric century so I’ll be riding that route. It’s another ride that requires an early wake up since it takes about an hour to get to the start.

So if any of these floats your boat, drop me a line and we can ride together.

At 4 o’clock there was a knock on my door. I went out to the front steps as a FedEx van drove away.  Next to my front door was a big tivek package. My three new  Schwalbe Marathon tires had arrived from Wisconsin in two business days. Not bad.

A couple of hours later I was in my back yard with my new tires, some new tubes and Little Nellie. I had the bad Primo Comet off her rear wheel in a couple of minutes then the fun began.

Schwalbe tires are notoriously hard to mount on a rim. They are durable and puncture resistant and take a whole bunch of air pressure.  To accomplish this they are made of stiff rubber.  To add to my woes, the wheels on my Bike Friday are ever so slightly smaller than they should be.  (I can tell because mounting a Schwalbe tire on the front wheel of my Tour Easy is difficult but not cuss inducing and it’s supposed to be the same size wheel.)

I had the tire on the rim except for the very last quarter of the circumference.  Getting this last bit over the rim is a bitch. I tied the tire down with zip ties to keep from losing ground then went to work. I tried and tired for ten minutes and that tire just wouldn’t budge.  Then I looked down and realized I had worn the skin off both my thumbs. Ugh!

This was not going well.

(Why did I buy these tires?  First, they are $15 cheaper than Primo Comets and infinitely more puncture resistant.  They also have thicker tread which means they won’t get all cut up like the Comet on Little Nellie did.  On the way home from work the other night, I ran into two recumbent riders. Both had Schwalbe Durano tires on their bikes.  I asked why and one of the riders told me that he had tried Continental tires and they blew off his rim.  There’s not a whole lot left to choose from when you’re buying 20 inch tires.  So it really comes down to how much tread and how much puncture resistance you want.  The more of either, the harder the tire is to mount and the more rolling resistance you’ll get. Since the front tire on my Tour Easy bears little weight, rolling resistance is a plus; it keeps the front tire from sliding out on leaves and wet pavement. Since I like to occasionally ride on the unpaved C&O Canal towpath, a little tread is welcome on Little Nellie.  So the Schwalbe Marathon seems like a decent compromise tire for my purposes.)

What to do? I came inside and pulled up a video of an old British dude putting a Schwalbe tyre on his wheel.  I’ve seen this video many times before and I’ve actually watched a local cyclists use the technique and mount a Schwalbe with great ease.  Back to my tire. Nothing. I gave it to my son who is infinitely stronger than me. He gave up in 30 seconds. What to do? I needed protection for my blistered thumbs so I went into the basement and put on the pair of cheap cotton gardening gloves that Bike Friday sends to its customers to keep from getting dirty when assembling their new bike.

In no more than fifteen seconds I had the tire on the rim.  Dang!  Those gloves are now in my saddle bag.

I have two more Schwalbes to mount. I think I’ll give my thumbs the rest of the night off. I will apply alcohol (a cold Shiner Bock or two) and try the other two tomorrow.  

Today I had my day in court. Again. I was called for jury duty. It is the second time I have served on a jury in Fairfax Circuit Court.  My first was a drunk driving trial in which we the jury found the defendant guilty.  In Virginia juries also determine the sentence in a criminal case and damages in a civil case. (I have no idea if the jury’s determination is binding on the court.)  In the drunk driving trial, the defendant was on his third DUI and the conviction under Virginia’s three strikes law was a felony. He had good lawyers, but it didn’t matter. We hit him with a fine and jail time.

Today’s case was a civil dispute between two people, a husband and wife, and a single defendant. The wife was driving her car and making a left at a green light when she was hit by the defendant, who admitted he ran the red light.  The husband was suing for reimbursement of his rental car costs, incurred because his wife’s car was out of action. The wife was suing for a monetary award to cover damages.

During voir dire, I had to tell the defense attorney about my wife’s accident (she was run over by an SUV 15 months ago) and that her situation was still unresolved. I can’t believe he left me on the jury.  It may be because almost every other juror told of a car accident involving themselves or a loved one.  It’s a jungle out there. 

There is an old saying, a lawyer is a fool who has himself as a client. Today’s trial was pretty much proof of that. The defendant had an young attorney who did a decent job. The plaintiffs represented themselves. Most of the trial involved the judge explaining to the husband what he could or could not assert in front of the jury, what could or could not be admitted into the record, etc. Basic trial law.

The interesting part of the case was applying the concept of contributory negligence. Under this legal concept, if a plaintiff even slightly contributed to the accident, he or she cannot make a claim against the defendant. The judge explained that we might find this to be harsh, but it is the law that we had to work with. The driver admitted that he ran a red light and hit the plaintiff.

After the evidence was presented, we were sent off to the jury room to deliberate. First, we had to determine if the plaintiff contributed to the accident.  The seven jurors all heard the same evidence and all had slightly different versions of it. We determined after about 30 minutes that the plaintiff was in no way negligent.  Then we had to determine damages.  Here’s where the plaintiff’s need for a lawyer came into play. We were given no quantitative evidence of material harm to the driver. No cost of car repair, no cost of doctors visits, no cost of medical diagnostic tests, nothing.  On cross examination we learned that she had been in an accident a week earlier so we couldn’t tell if her injuries were from the accident at issue in the case.  We all sympathized with her, but our instructions from the bench were we were not allowed to let that influence our decision.  We gave her no monetary award.

Technically the driver (the wife) was representing herself, but she hardly said anything to the jury.

The husband did address the jury. He kept screwing up argument and evidence, what was admissable and what was not. The judge was patient to a fault with him. The plaintiffs claimed that he had essentially run up a car rental bill frivolously. We sided with the husband despite his painfully inept self representation.  He told the jury how much he wanted and we gave it to him.

There was some talk of settlement talks between the parties that the jury wasn’t supposed to hear.  We had the sense that the husband didn’t like what was offered and took the case to trial out of spite. A couple of the jurors said his wife kept putting her hand on his arm to keep him from interrupting the judge.

The jurors I served with were all intelligent, logical, and articulate. The jury has to be unanimous in its decision. All I did as foreman was stop deliberations periodically and force each juror to vote. Negligent: yes or no. Around we went. More deliberations. Finally, we had seven nos. Then, how much money for her?  Around and around.

Then we did the same with the husband.

Then I wrote the jury’s findings down and signed my name. Case closed. Jury dismissed.

While waiting in the jury pool room (no billiards or water, just tables and chairs and 100 or so of my peers), I killed time reading Bicycling magazine. The man sitting next to me asked if I was a cyclist.  It turns out he was Jim Strang, one of the owners of Spokes Etc. bike shops. I probably paid for his kid’s college education!!!  Jim told me many stories of the bike business in the DC area going back to the 1970s.  We talked about Metropolis (a great shop in Shirlington), the various incarnations of the Belle Haven location, CityBikes and BicycleSpace, and some of the long history of Larry Black, now owner of Mt. Airy and College Park Bikes, but previously an owner of three stores, one in DC, one in Virginia, and one in Maryland. In passing, he mentioned some of the bike stores that I used to shop at back in the day. We even talked about how it might have been Jim who sold me The Mule at the Quaker Lane Spokes store. (They had bought to many and were selling them at a steep discount. I was happy to take one off his hands.)  I could have talked all day with him but then the court deputy came in and grabbed us for duty.

On the way home, I stopped at the Spokes Belle Haven store to buy some tubes and chamois cream. Jim’s still got a daughter to put through college.

My peers?  I have peers?  I have jury duty tomorrow which means I either get up at 5:30 and ride my bike through the inhospitable, car-clogged suburbs between Mount Vernon and the Fairfax Courthouse, or I sleep an extra hour and drive there. I’d like to be your bike everywhere hero but I also want to live to bike another month. So July is in the bag. 

Despite missing a whole bunch of days because of my wife’s surgery, my in-laws’ family reunion, and my general sloth, I still managed to bang out 608 miles this month. I did 21 rides, of which 15 were bike commutes. 3 rides (all commutes) were aboard The Mule. The rest were on Little Nellie.  My longest ride was a foray into Bethesda for a bagel and a cup of joe. 

So far this year, I’ve ridden to work 81 times. I saw a guy exercising this morning. He was tethered with some sort of think red stretchy thing to the post holding up a basketball backboard.  Another man stood near the foul line. Tether Man would launch himself, driving with his feet until her reached Foul Line’s extended hands then backpedal to the baseline to start again.  My commute’s like that. I exert force back and forth but always end up where I started. One of these days, the tether will break and I’ll find myself in Iowa.

My total mileage for the year is 3,846 miles, on pace for well over 6,000 miles, lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise (which happens to be the title of a pretty good album by Ray LaMontaigne in case you need some music recommendations).

On the way home tonight, I was passed by three roadies near the power plant.  The first roadie called out the pass. A fourth rider on a mountain bike brought up the rear, head down, trying to pass the third roadie. A fourth roadie came from the opposite direction just missing Mountain Bike as he swung out to try his pass.  He yelled something to get Mountain Bike back on his side of the trail. Mountain Bike cussed him. Dude, you nearly caused a horrible accident with two roadies and me.  You are lucky there were some many bikes, otherwise you were sure to get caught in my bicycle death ray.  I may have to use my pump like the Italians in Breaking Away the next time you pass. Buon giorno.

Mr. Ed works in a cubicle around the corner from my office. He’s a data miner. He doesn’t wear a helmet with a light on the top, but I hear he has a canary in his cube for safety.  He used to work at Spokes, commutes on a fixie, and forgot more about how a bike’s parts work than I’ll ever know.  He speculated today that the bent derailleur hanger on Little Nellie may have been caused by the crappy bike racks in the garage at work. You back your bike into these metal hoops that are angled at about 30 degrees from the ground. If I push Little Nellie all the way in, its rear derailleur gets hung up on the metal hoop. So, I will be careful when parking at work in the future.

My tires are on the way from Wisconsin. I ordered them from Hostelshoppe, a recumbent store that had a web and catalogue business. FedEx sent me a routing number. Why do people care about the routing of their goods?  I don’t care if they send my tires via Sao Paulo as long as they get here in a few days.  I suppose I can keep myself entertained by obsessively checking my package’s progress. Kind of like Dave Stoller’s father sitting in one of his used cars listening to his son’s progress in the Little 500 bicycle race. If you don’t know what I am talking about, turn off the Olympics and get yourself a copy of Breaking Away. You’ll have a Mendelssohn ear worm for weeks.

Ciao.

After yesterday’s trip to the bike doctor, I was ready to test out the adjustments that were made to my bike.  I woke up and read the Sunday half of the Sunday paper. (We get the good stuff like the funnies and two crossword puzzles on Saturday.)  Then I read a few pages of a new book called Ride Somewhere Far, (written by family friend Claire Bangser).  There I was sitting on my deck reading a book all about getting off your ass and exploring the world by bicycle. And the weather was superb. Then it occurred to me, maybe I should ride somewhere far today.

Unless I get everything set up the night before, it takes me a while to get rolling. First, I put on the new fenders I bought for Little Nellie.  Then I lubed her chain. Then I took out the garbage. And fed the birds. After an hour, I put my fanny on my bike and rolled down the street. My plan was to ride to Great Falls Maryland and, depending how I felt, ride on to White’s Ferry where I would take a cable ferry across the Potomac and ride home. It would be a little over 100 miles.

As I pedaled down the road, I noticed right away that the ticking noise from my front derailleur had returned.  I am pretty sure there is nothing too dreadful wrong with my bike, but the ticking is really annoying. I rode to the drug store to drop off a prescription. The pharmacy wasn’t opened. I headed north on the Mount Vernon Trail, drug free.

On nice summer weekend days, the Mount Vernon Trail can become every bit as pleasant as the New Jersey Turnpike on the day before Thanksgiving, only the MVT is more crowded.  Today wasn’t so bad.  You could tell that the occasional cyclists were among us. The wool socks and frogs gave this guy away.

Wool socks and clogs are de rigeur this year

After I passed Mr. Footwear, I put my camera away, only to come upon a bicycle with a cockatoo in a cage on its rear rack. The rider didn’t look like Robert Blake so I forgot about taking a picture and passed him by. I got stuck behind a couple of young women who had the decency to dress well and ride at a decent pace.

Much improved fashion

Along the river north of the airport, I spotted a clear threat to homeland security in the river. Washington was under attack by an outrigger canoe.

We’re doomed!!

I was all set to dial 911 when I noticed that the canoe was clearly not being used with hostile intent. Apparently these folks were just out getting some exercise and training for the King Kamehameha Games in Kailua Kona on the big island of Hawaii. Chaka, bra!

Never mind. Just some harmless waterborne lobbyists

By this point it had become clear that, although my ticking friend was still with me, the skipping of the chain on the rear cogs was pretty much gone. So Brad the mechanic is batting 500. (In his defense, he told me that the ticking could easily return after he tightened the bolts on my chainrings, and that only then would he recommend more expensive remedies.) 

I crossed over the 14th Street Bridge into DC and danced with the tour buses.  I do wish we could get rid of these things. They belch diesel fumes and radiate heat while spewing out touroids who wander about disoriented. An elevated tramway would be so much nicer. Get on that Congress!

Eventually, I came to the Capital Crescent Trail where I found another glut of fair weather cyclists. I have a new rule: you can’t use the trails around DC on nice days in July unless you ride your bike on them in subfreezing temperatures in February.  So it is written so it will be! (Ramses was my great to the 10 power grandpop,)

I stopped at a Fletcher’s Boathouse to re-load my waterbottles and decide which route to take to Great Falls, paved roads or the unpaved C&O Canal towpath. I chose the towpath because I haven’t ridden it in months, and because it is a beautiful ride.

A few miles later, 18 miles from home,

BANG!  

Hello.

The sound of the explosion was so loud that I thought it came from my front wheel. Alas, it came from the rear tire, a tire that I had replaced a puncture on only two weeks ago with lots of tyvek material for booting.

For the uninitiated, when you get a puncture in your tire, some material passes through the tire and penetrates the tube, wherein lies the air that makes your tire pneumatic.  When your take the offending material out, you end up with a hole in the tire casing. My rear tire is riddled with these holes and one hole is particularly long and jagged.  As you bounce along the tire flexes. As your tire flexes, it bites the tube.  If it has jagged edges, it bites a hole in the tube. If it bites a hole in the tube, the tube complains by saying, “:BANG! “ To prevent this from happening you need some material, called a boot, to cover the hole. I used Tyvek at the recommendation of my cycling mad ophthalmologist.  As we now know, Tyvek is overrated.

I replaced the tube and put a patch over the jagged gash in my tire. Then I put a Tyvek boot over that.  I decided that riding further from home on the towpath was probably not a formula for a fun Sunday, so I turned around and headed home.

Of course, the ride home went off without a hitch. I didn’t see any cockatoos or wool socks and frogs or outrigger canoes. It was uninspiring, but the chicks were nice. (I add that only because as I write this my wife and daughter are watching Olympic waterpolo and oohing and aahing over the hot polo players.)

When I got home, I ordered three tires (two for Little Nellie and one for Big Nellie). Some day this week I need to buy some glue for my patch kit and another tube. And sign up for some fall rides. You wouldn’t want those tires to go to waste now, would you?

I hate fixing things. I suck at fixing things. It’s a chicken and egg thing. Do I hate fixing things because I suck or do I suck because I hate? This is one of life’s mysteries. When things break, I use my best tool, my credit card. As a friend of mine once told me, this is why God invented money.

As I mentioned yesterday, Little Nellie just crossed the 8,000-mile threshold.  After 7,000 miles, I was thinking about getting rid of this bike, a Bike Friday New World Tourist. For those unfamiliar with such beasts, Little Nellie is a folding travel bike. I had it custom-built to mimic the riding position of The Mule, my old Specialized Sequoia touring bike.

I made two changes to The Mule’s specifications when I bought Little Nellie. At the assurance of a Bike Friday salesman, I bought wider handlebars for Little Nellie. This took some time to get used to, but after a few months, I liked them so much that I bought wider handlebars for The Mule. My second modification was to use a Brooks B67 saddle instead of a Brooks Flyer saddle.  The main difference between the two is that the B67 is wider and springier than the Flyer. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the B67 to work with my body mechanics.  So a few weeks ago, I rode to BicycleSpace, a superb new bike shop in DC, and bought a Flyer. Within 50 miles, I had a new bike. It was simply incredible what a huge difference this one change made.  There will be no more discussions of sending Little Nellie away.  She’s a keeper.

I had the mechanics at Spokes Etc., my local Mount Vernon bike shop, replace the cassette (the gears in the back) and the chain on Little Nellie last summer.  It has never shifted properly since.  I took the bike back to them  twice and still no improvement.  I then tried twice to fix it and more of the same. The problem is that seemingly at random the chain would skip over the cogs. Nevertheless, I have put 2 or 3 thousand miles on the chain making do with a less than perfect situation.  About 200 miles ago I started hearing a “tick” somewhere down near the chain rings (the gears in front). I could get it to go away by fiddling with the front derailleur, but it would come back. These kinds of noises usually mean that something is loose or a ball bearing has gone bad.  (It can also be something much more ominous like a cracked frame.) I tightened the right pedal, but this had no effect on the noise.

On the way home from work I stopped at Spokes to have them look over the bike and tell me how to resolved these problems. After about 15 minutes the mechanic decided that I had a stretched chain, a bad right hand shifter (this controls the gears in the rear), and a bad front derailleur. I really like this shop, because they routinely do minor fixes on my bike for free.  And this evaluation was free too, but something about the evaluation didn’t ring true.  The shifter felt fine to me. Front derailleur replacements are very rare. 8,000 miles are not enough miles to account for either of these problems.  I was skeptical about the chain too, but, after thinking it over, I realized that the chain is in about the condition one would expect given the mileage I put on it. 

I slept on the evaluation and decided that I would definitely change the chain, but I would take my bike to BicycleSpace for a second opinion. The head mechanic, a bearded sage named Paul, is the dean of DC-area bike mechanics. He’s our Sheldon Brown, a legendary Boston area mechanic.  About 15 years ago when Paul was at CityBikes in DC, I had a problem with The Mule. Its headset kept coming loose. I took it to one bike shop after another and nobody could fix it.  Finally, Bailey Garfield, the owner of Papillon Cycles in Arlington where I used to live, recommended Paul.  I called CityBikes and before I could finish explaining the problem, Paul said, “I know what’s wrong. I can fix it. Bring it in.” I rode to the shop at lunchtime. Paul fiddled with the handlebars and headset, then started rummaging around in some drawers. He stood up with a small washer pinched between his fingers. He held it up to the light like it was a gem and said, “This is what you need.”  In five minutes, he removed an-ever-so-slightly-thicker washer from the headset, inserted the gem and Voila!  I was ready to get rid of the bike, but Paul saved it with a ten-cent part. And it has stayed fixed for 15 years and well over 15,000 miles.

Paul was not at the shop, but Brad was. I listened as he dealt with a customer in front of me and thought, “He’s the man.”  I explained the situation with Little Nellie and Brad went to work. In no time flat, he found that the bolts that hold my chain rings (front gears) together were loose. Out came an Allen wrench. Turn, turn, turn. He couldn’t find anything wrong with the front derailleur and shifter.  Then he looked at the rear gears.

With a skillful glance he said, “Your derailleur hanger is bent.” Ah ha!! I thought.  (The derailleur hanger is the metal piece of the bike to which the rear shifting mechanism is attached.) He pulled out a strange looking contraption and I stood in admiration as he straightened it out.  The device he used looks a lot like the hardware that surgeons use to line up bones during a knee replacement. (I used to watch the TV show “The Operation.)

Next he took the shifter cable off and re-attached it with a bit more slack. Then he adjusted the gears three times, once for each chain ring in the front.  His final recommendation was to replace the rear cassette and chain, and to ride the bike and see if his work on the chain ring bolts eliminated the ticking noise.

This particular cassette is expensive and I am not a big fan of the gearing it provides. To change it I will have to change the entire rear wheel, because the hub is specific to the cassette. My plan, then is simple: ride the sucker until the shifting sends me around the bend (figuratively, that is). I hope that Bike Friday can give me guidance on the proper replacement wheel/hub/and cassette.  Then I will replace the whole works and the chain and I will be good to go.

BicycleSpace charged me less than $20 for the repairs and advice. Good on you guys. I will be back to buy more bike stuff in the future.

As for Spokes, no worries there either. I have spent a few thousands dollars on bikes, spare parts, and repairs there over the last 20 plus years. They have a great policy of fixing minor problems while you wait, saving many a bike commute for me. On many occasions, I have watched them come to the aid of cyclists touring the east coast. As a once and future bike tourist, I can not tell you how important this is. So they’ll still get my business. Local bike shops are indispensable and need all the support they can get. 

And if you live in Arlington, Papillon is a superb resource, the epitome of a good local bike shop.